Members of the late James Ryan’s family shouted “this is a joke” when Judge Martin Nolan handed down a sentence of two years and nine months to his partner for causing his death.
The former Defence Forces member, who was known as a “gentleman” among family and friends, died from complications arising from blunt force trauma to the head when his partner pushed him to the ground after he left the house following a row.
Olesja Hertova, aged 50, years from Hastings Lawns, Balbriggan, north Dublin, was captured on CCTV running at Mr Ryan as he stood at a parked car outside their house. The mother-of-two knocked him to the ground causing him severe head injuries, he was rushed to Beaumont Hospital and died the next day.
At a sentencing hearing on Thursday, the couple’s only daughter together Eliska Ryan aged 16, said: “When she drank she would sometimes turn into someone I didn’t recognise, angry, unpredictable and hard to reach.”
Handing down his sentence on Friday afternoon, Judge Nolan said: “It was a forceful push that constituted an assault, and this defendant unlawfully killed Mr James Ryan.
“It is a tragic incident – tragic for their young daughter and the children of his first marriage and extended family,” he said.
“Mr Ryan was a popular and well-regarded man and seems to have been vital to his family and obviously his death has caused huge trauma to his family.”
He said Ms Hertova “lost her temper” on the night and “by reason of that loss of control she pushed him forcibly.
“I have no doubt this defendant did not intend to kill Mr Ryan but she acted in a reckless way and when you push someone there is a chance you can sustain serious injuries.”
He said there were mitigating factors, including her “plea of guilty and co-operation with the gardaí and that she has no record of conviction whatsoever and that it is unlikely she will reoffend in the future”.
He added that Ms Hertova, who is originally from the Czech Republic, was “remorseful and shameful for what she has done”.
“It seems she has destroyed her relationship maybe temporarily with her daughter and knows the trauma she inflected on her daughter”, he said.
Ms Hertova’s sentence will be backdated to when she went into custody on August 27, 2024. This means she will serve one year and nine months but will be entitled to a 25% reduction in her time behind bars for good behaviour.
The court heard that the headline sentence was for the lower end of the manslaughter conviction, which is five years. In this case, Judge Nolan handed down a sentence of two years and nine months – to be backdated to the day she went into custody on August 27, 2024.
Members of Mr Ryan’s family shouted: “Two years and nine months for killing someone, that’s a joke, that’s bullshit”. Another family member said “you abused our dad for years” while others left the court in tears.
Ms Hertova, who was in tears, was taken back to the Dochas women’s prison to serve the remainder of her sentence.
Speaking outside the courts, Karen Ryan told the the sentence fell “extremely short of the justice he (our father) deserved. Two years and nine months for the killing of our father.”
